Statement about why my work just blossomed, quite literally
(drawn from a personal email to Deesha Philyaw, co-parenting guru and steadfast friend)
...those landscapes came from a really heavy quest to see expansive beauty beyond clouds of pain, grief, need, isolation. That's why they were powerful, because beauty really is always there somewhere... but it's also why it was just a heavier load than I could shoulder to keep painting them as well as they need to be painted. I had to be in that place all full of yearning and unyielding determination, straining my eyes to make out the view of things so far away. It is good to have done that, because I guess I did see something important.
What I think I realized is that it is too hard to look away to the horizon for beauty. When I looked down at the ground under me instead, that one rose painting sprang up. I guess I just decided to forget about the grand view waaaay over there and what keeps me from it, and to cultivate what I can right here around my feet.
Just call me Dorothy.